REVIEW: ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Episode 7 — “Will the Real May Please Stand Up?”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has been changing gears tonally across the last couple of episodes, and this week’s Episode 7, “Will the Real May Please Stand Up?” continues the trend. The last episode returned the series to an emotional jump between the past and present, showing the ever-growing militarization of Monarch, Shaw (Wyatt Russell) and Keiko’s (Mari Yamamoto) romance, and a blueprint for what Monarch becomes in the present. In the present, we saw a gorgeous Godzilla wake up from a nap and discover that Hiroshi Randa is still alive. Following all of that is an episode that aims for a smaller scope but loses itself along the way. Last episode was the best in the series, and this one is the worst.

As you can probably tell from the title, “Will the Real May Please Stand Up?” is all about May (Kiersey Clemons) in who she really is, why she is on the run, and who is out to get her—surprise, it isn’t Monarch. What could have been a large episode unpacking her past and connecting it to the current story at hand revealed that May was an engineer at AET (which seems to be Apex, the company responsible for the cybernetic neuro-interface unit we see in the most recent Godzilla film). And it’s not for the better.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters isn’t bad, but it’s buckling under the same weight of another multi-perspective series, Invasion. When the series is in its emotional pocket, usually in the past with Keiko, young Shaw, and Bill (Anders Holm), it’s hitting something special and capturing the origin of Godzilla’s creation in pop culture while also developing Monarch into what we know in Legendary’s Monsterverse. At the end of Episode 6, with Monarch being given to new military leadership, I wanted to see how the trio handled it. Instead, I got an episode dedicated to May and an easter egg for Mechagodzilla that links the series to Godzilla vs Kong. 

It’s the only time the series has felt as if it only existed to connect threads of the existing Monsterverse, and it’s frustrating, especially because May’s character initially could have been more than this. Given Kiersey Clemons’s strong acting ability, it’s a shame that even when they try to make May into something larger, she’s still beholden to delivering more information about where this series fits into a larger franchise. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 7 is a larger stumble for the series, and it leaves me worried that there are just too many characters and storylines to wrap up neatly or with impact by the time Episode 10 comes around.

This episode also brings Monarch into the public eye and shows larger divisions between everyone involved who knows about, makes money off of, or studies Titans. This is either seen via AET against Monarch but only kind of, or Monarch against itself, as Shaw sets up shop in Alaska again. There is something larger in a corporate sense coming into focus, but that is really not the most interesting part of the series. Still, that looks like the narrative we will be focusing on moving forward.

Ultimately, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 7 may be about May and her past, but it’s more about Monarch and stringing together all of the breadcrumbs left from each of the existing stories in the Monsterverse. Frustrating, to say the least, the series is losing focus of its most endearing characters in the past, and that’s a shame. While Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe), and May are closer now, something just feels empty.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Episode 7 is streaming now on AppleTV+, with new episodes every Friday.